Social links

Subscribe using RSS

Subscribe!

Blood Sisters

Blood Sisters is an historical epic with a romantic, adventurous edge, and out now for Kindle from Amazon US and Amazon UK and as a limited edition paperback from Burning Eye Books.

Shipping Destination

Search for:

Before the Storm

My third novel of POSH DOOM and iniquity is a tale of passion, woe, betrayal and true love based on The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton and played against the glittering, exciting and yet often dangerous backdrop of Georgian London, Versailles and Revolutionary France.

Despite posting here a couple of times about suffering Tudor Fatigue, I’ve actually been having a bit of a renaissance (ho ho, did you see what I did there?!) when it comes to almost everyone’s favourite sixteenth century dynasty (I said ALMOST EVERYONE, Medici, Valois, Hapsburg, Howard, Stuart etc lovers!) and have started reading about them again but only very selectively. I’m going to blame Hilary Mantel for this as Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies did a most excellent job of reminding me why I loved sixteenth century history so much and also that there are still the odd wonderful pearls of JOYOUS excellence in amongst all the dross that publishers are hitting us with at the moment.

For instance, I recently very much enjoyed The Sisters Who Would Be Queen: The tragedy of Mary, Katherine and Lady Jane Grey by Leanda de Lisle, which is a really engaging and interesting re-telling of the hoary old tale of the Grey sisters, their ambitious (or were they?!) parents and the terrible minefield of mid sixteenth century political wheeling and dealing in the wake of Edward VI’s untimely death. I’ve always suspected that Lady Jane Grey wasn’t the mawkishly innocent little sacrificial lamb of fond Victorian imagining and this book really confirmed this for me with its depiction of Lady Jane as a not altogether very pleasant, religious bigot with a sharp tongue and rather entitled manner. I wasn’t altogether taken with her sister Lady Catherine either, who seemed strangely lacking in self awareness for one who had grown up within the danger zone of the Tudor line of succession, but it was nice to read more about Lady Mary, the youngest Grey sister.

Lady Jane Dudley (née Grey), anonymous artist, late sixteenth century. Photo: National Portrait Gallery, London. I hate this bungling, amateurish, awful portrait but it seems to be considered the most authentic representation right now, alas.

I wonder if De Lisle’s book will have a knock on result on novels about Lady Jane from now on, but doubt it although I went on to read Susan Higginbotham’s excellent Her Highness, the Traitor, which featured a sympathetic, warm and affectionate Frances Grey (not the violent, shrewish termagant that we are all used to seeing) and a coldly unlikeable Jane so that was fun to read.

I’ve also had my interest in Mary, Queen of Scots reignited in the last few months and have even been thinking about writing a novel about her youth, although that’s quite far down my currently enormous list of Books To Write so may not surface for a while! I’m about to embark on Roderick Graham’s An Accidental Tragedy: The Life of Mary, Queen of Scots, followed by Rosalind K. Marshall’s Mary Queen of Scots: Truth or Lies. I’ve never been altogether sympathetic towards poor Mary, believing her, like the unfortunate Lady Catherine Grey, to be peculiarly lacking in self awareness and very much the authoress of her own ill fortune. However, I think I must be mellowing as I get older or something as I’ve found myself returning to her story with fresh eyes.

I was thrilled therefore to see that there’s going to be a new exhibition based around Mary at the National Museum of Scotland between June and November next year, which is lucky as we’re already planning a trip to Edinburgh next year. I must be the worst half Scot in existence as (despite being born and spending my first eleven years in Scotland) I’ve only ever visited my own capital city once and then only for a couple of hours on a day trip. I want to see Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh Castle, the National Gallery of Scotland and um the Royal Yacht Britannia though so it’s got to be done!

Oh dear, I’ve only just noticed that all the women I selected pictures of for this post had their heads chopped off. Ah well. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

3 thoughts on “Maybe the Tudors aren’t all that bad…”

Love, love, love your blog. Been following it for some time. Over here in the States, they’re developing a TV series based on Mary, Queen of Scots and her teen years. It’ll probably suck. Write that book, though!

Melanie: Have you read Deborah Harkness’s Discovery of Witches and School of Night? I know you usually aren’t big on paranormal stuff but please trust a fellow history nut and do it. Her second book in the All Souls Trilogy; School of Night is an entire book on Elizabeth Tudor’s England and what one of us as history junkies would experience if we suddenly went back to the 1590’s. :) Happy New Year Clegg Family!

I'm currently working on a full length biography of Marie de Guise for Pen and Sword books and am represented by Jess Regel at Foundry Media.

I shouldn't really need to say this but all the written content on this site is my own work and copyrighted to me so please ask before using elsewhere. I've come across a couple of sites now that have lifted my work without any acknowledgement and it leaves a nasty taste to be honest and makes me YOUR ENEMY FOR LIFE.

Most of the art work is a free for all so help yourself so long as it isn't for reasons of personal gain and iniquity, but a lot is down to my own lame photographic skills so please ask if you suspect this to be the case.

I'm really dedicated to introducing people to gorgeous art work that they might not otherwise have seen - I try my best to ensure that the works that I feature fall within the boundries of fair use and are either my own work, freely available or I have permission from the source. However, if I have accidentally posted up something that I really ought not to have done, let me know and I'll remove it straight away! Thanks!

I can also be friended on Goodreads, where I have an author profile with links to my books.

Marie Antoinette

As the youngest daughter of the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, Marie Antoinette was born into a world of almost unbelievable privilege and power. As wife of Louis XVI of France she was first feted and adored and then universally hated as tales of her dissipated lifestyle and extravagance pulled the already discredited monarchy into a maelstrom of revolution, disaster and tragedy. Available to buy now from Amazon US and Amazon UK.

From Whitechapel

There was a pain, a terrible empty, lonely ache of sorrow and loss, within my ribcage while my heart felt like it had been turned to ashes. This then was the end of my journey, this then was the answer that I had sought for so long, this then was the secret that Whitechapel had been withholding from me.

Set against the infamous Jack the Ripper murders of autumn 1888, From Whitechapel is a dark and sumptuous tale of bittersweet love, friendship, loss and redemption.

Available to buy now from Amazon US and Amazon UK and as a limited edition paperback from Burning Eye books.

Shipping Destination

Minette

To know her was to love her...

Born in the very heart of the dangers of the English Civil War, smuggled out of the clutches of Parliament as a toddler and then raised in near penury in exile in France, the charming and beautiful Princess Henrietta-Anne Stuart, youngest daughter of Charles I and Henrietta Maria is the original Cinderella, waiting breathlessly and with some trepidation for the moment when her family’s fortunes will be restored and she can reclaim her proper place in the world.

The first book in my two part series about Minette, the youngest and favourite sister of Charles II is now available from Amazon US and Amazon UK.

The Secret Diary of a Princess

My first book The Secret Diary of a Princess: a novel of Marie Antoinette, about the early life of Marie Antoinette and her transformation from a gawky Austrian princess to the fashionable, elegant Madame la Dauphine is OUT NOW and available to buy rather thrillingly as a Kindle book from Amazon UK or Amazon US.